Federal judge blocks solitary confinement ban from taking effect on Rikers

A federal judge said last week that the city should not yet implement a law banning solitary confinement in the city’s jails, even after a local judge said the mayor illegally blocked the law’s implementation a few days earlier. AP file photo by Bebeto Matthews

By Jacob Kaye

A federal judge last week said the city was barred from fully implementing a local law banning solitary confinement on Rikers Island, several days after a state judge said Mayor Eric Adams’ efforts to prevent the law from taking effect were illegal.

Federal Judge Laura Swain, who earlier this year stripped the city of its full control over the troubled jail complex, gave the Adams administration a win last week when she said a City Council law banning solitary confinement in the jails, which the mayor has long been opposed to, should not be put into practice.

Swain said in a recent ruling that Local Law 42, which limits the Department of Correction’s use of restraints and solitary confinement practices, conflicts with the efforts made by her federal monitor, Steve J. Martin, to reform the jails over the past decade.

The judge, who is currently hearing from candidates hoping to serve as Rikers Island’s first-ever “remedial manager,” ordered the city to hold off on implementing the law, which was supposed to take effect a year ago. The holding period for the law will remain in place until the judge says otherwise.

Swain said the city “shall have no duty to comply with [Local Law 42],” and that no one should take “action to enforce” the law.

The judge’s ruling was rooted in the findings of a January report from the federal monitor, which claimed that implementation of the law would “only exacerbate the current dangerous conditions” on Rikers Island. Martin, who conducted a review of the law after the Adams administration requested one, said that he had “grave concerns about the implementation of certain problematic sections of [Local Law 42].”

The monitor’s concerns have been echoed by the Adams administration, which claims both that the city no longer uses solitary confinement and that the new law would prevent the DOC from being able to separate detainees accused of committing violence behind bars from others.

However, the City Council has argued the ban is necessary, citing claims from detainees, attorneys, the media and whistleblowers that the DOC has, over the years, used various methods to constrain detainees that often share major similarities to solitary confinement.

The ruling from the federal judge is the latest road block for the City Council law, which has been on the city’s books since the start of 2024 but has yet to be put into practice by the DOC, which has long opposed the measure.

After years of attempting to pass the ban, the City Council pushed the bill through with a veto-proof majority during the final days of its 2023 legislative session.

Despite the Council’s support for the bill, Adams vetoed the bill the following month. The rejection, however, was short lived – the Council promptly voted to override the mayor’s veto of the bill, putting the law on track to take effect on July 28, 2024.

But just a day before the bill was supposed to be put into practice, the mayor passed an executive order declaring a state of emergency on Rikers Island and preventing the law from taking effect.

“There were some parts of it that were extremely dangerous to the inmates,” Adams said at the time. “The goal is we want to make sure the spirit of the law does not get in the way of the implementation of the law.”

The City Council sued the mayor over the executive order in December.

Swain’s ruling last week was prompted by a separate ruling in the City Council’s suit over the order.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Pearlman said in a ruling issued in late-June that the mayor broke the law last year when he used the state of emergency declaration to get around implementing the Council’s law.

Pearlman said that the mayor’s order didn’t meet the criteria for a true state of emergency and was only passed because of his opposition to the Council’s bill.

“There is a single tool available to the mayor, however, to prevent the implementation of a bill that the mayor opposes: the veto,” Pearlman wrote. “When the City Council overturns a mayoral veto, it is not an emergency, it is a democratic process, clearly laid out in the New York City Charter.”

Pearlman added that even though state law gives the mayor “immense power,” “that [the mayor] disagreed with the City Council on the passage of [Local Law] 42 cannot be considered an emergency.”

But while Pearlman took issue with the way in which Adams went about avoiding the law, Swain said that her opposition to the solitary confinement ban was rooted in the text of the law itself.

Under the law, incarcerated individuals who commit a violation behind bars would be prevented from being held in an isolated cell for more than two hours per day within a 24-hour period and for more than eight hours at night directly after an alleged offense occurred – the confinement would be referred to as a “de-escalation” period. Should corrections officials determine that further confinement is required to de-escalate a situation, an incarcerated person could be held for up to four hours total in a 24-hour period.

The law would also allow for people in custody being placed in restrictive housing to have a hearing on whether or not their placement in restrictive housing is necessary. During that hearing, they would be allowed to be represented by an advocate, be it a lawyer, law student, paralegal or another incarcerated person.

Local Law 42 also requires that people in restrictive housing are given access to at least 14 hours of out-of-cell time per day. That time is supposed to be filled with programming and activities, according to the law.

The law also includes several other provisions, including a rule requiring the DOC to provide a detainee in a de-escalation period with a communication device and a prohibition on enhanced restraints on detainees under the age of 22.

Martin said in his January report that he took issue with at least a half dozen components of the law, including how it defines solitary confinement. The monitor claimed that the City Council’s definition of the practice “goes well beyond” that of the standard definitions of solitary, which typically includes one to four hours of out-of-cell time for detainees.

The monitor also raised concerns about the “global approach” of the law, which he claimed wouldn’t allow DOC officials to make decisions about whether or not to let a detainee back into general housing on a case-by-case basis.

“While [Local Law 42] works to eliminate solitary confinement and, theoretically, permits restrictive housing, in practice, the law does not permit the department the necessary discretion to develop a viable restrictive housing model,” Martin said in his report.

In a statement to the Eagle on Monday, a City Council spokesperson said that while they were pleased that “the State Supreme Court confirmed that Mayor Adams’ attempts to circumvent local law banning solitary confinement by issuing emergency executive orders were unlawful and an abuse of power,” they were also “disappointed with Judge Swain's recent decision,” adding that they were looking “forward to further litigating the issue.”

“We remain confident that Local Law 42 will improve conditions on Rikers and reduce the violence that remains commonplace on the island," the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said in a statement Monday that “enforcement of Local Law 42 as written would harm the safety of people in our custody, our correctional staff, court staff, and the public, and we are grateful that Judge Swain has paused its implementation.”